Column: 'The Interactive Palette' - Failure-Friendly Gameplay in Crayon Physics Deluxe
February 9, 2009 8:00 AM |
['The Interactive Palette' is a biweekly GameSetWatch-exclusive column by Gregory Weir that examines the tools and techniques of the digital games trade with a focus on games as art, using a single game as an example. This time - a look at failure-friendly gameplay in Crayon Physics Deluxe.]
One of the basic issues of video game design is that of the skill challenge. Early arcade games like Pac-Man and Space Invaders are gauntlets to be run, where a high score is the goal and failure is all-but-guaranteed. Indeed, the developers didn't even expect players to be able to succeed as well as they have.
Pac-Man crashes on the "kill screen" at level 255, and Space Invaders's score counter rolls over to zero after 9,990. These early games were descendents of carnival amusements and pinball; they provided ways for players to test their skill against the machine and against each other.
Games are no longer simply about skill, but the idea of the skill challenge remains. Many games, such as Super Mario Galaxy, still record "lives," even though the player is able to save and continue indefinitely. This apparent need to challenge the player often leads to what Shamus Young calls "do it again, stupid." The player will be assigned a particularly difficult task, where failure simply means that she must keep trying, over and over, until the task is accomplished. It's as if the punishment for failure is lost time and frustration.
Difficulty has an important role in video game design. It allows the player to empathize with the efforts of the player character, it helps to pace the game, and it provides the player with a feeling of accomplishment (provided the player doesn't just give up in frustration).
However, there is a difference between challenge and punishment for failure. The 2008 Prince of Persia was widely criticized for being too easy, in part because it doesn't punish the player enough for failing at a jump or a boss fight. However, this has little effect on how difficult the game is; it just means that the cost of failure is reduced.
Petri Purho's recent game Crayon Physics Deluxe presents an almost frustration-free experience by being failure-friendly. It presents true challenges, but does not severely punish the player for failing at them. Indeed, the failure experience not only teaches the player how to do better, but it is fun in its own right.
Dynamic Friction
For the purposes of this article, I'll break up the vague term "difficulty" into two: challenge and punishment. A challenging game, in this definition, is one which is hard because the tasks involved require a high level of skill, ability, or cleverness. A punishing game is one which provides a high cost of failure. Most old LucasArts adventure games like Monkey Island and Full Throttle provide challenging but unpunishing experiences.
Figuring out the puzzles requires a great deal of cleverness, but there is no way to die or lose progress in the game, so the game doesn't punish failure beyond refusing to progress the story until challenges are met. One can just as easily imagine a game which is unchallenging but punishing: the individual tasks are easy, but a single mistake would send the player back to the beginning of the game.
Overcoming challenge is much of the fun of video games for most players. Overcoming obstacles and proving one's prowess is entertaining and feels good. A game without challenge is one in which the conflict does not affect the player, only the characters. Different players desire different amounts of challenge, but most players want to achieve some amount of success over difficulty.
Punishment, on the other hand, primarily generates frustration and wasted time. It's difficult to come up with a way that punishment improves the game experience, but here's an attempt: punishment provides the negative reinforcement that makes success feel more "real." Without the knowledge of a negative consequence, it can feel like the player's achievement was not really hers, or was inevitable given enough time to attempt it.
As a player, I prefer gameplay to be reasonably challenging and minimally punishing. Crayon Physics Deluxe achieves this goal. It presents a series of puzzles which must be solved by drawing shapes to get a red ball to a gold star. These puzzles are often quite challenging: one of Purho's favorite tricks is to place the goal higher than the ball, forcing players to work against gravity.
However, the game provides the player with very little punishment. If the ball falls off of the screen, it immediately reappears at its starting location. This allows the player to restart the puzzle immediately with no lost time, and reinforces the urge to try just one more time.
The nature of Crayon Physics's game mechanics reinforce this balance. The game is a robust simulation, which means that any solution that should work does work. Many puzzles clearly have an intended solution, but players are free to experiment and create a convoluted or brute-force approach. Creativity is encouraged by rewarding it, instead of being discouraged due to there only being a single solution. Even techniques that aren't taught until the end of the game can be used in the first level, providing an additional challenge: solve puzzles in multiple ways.
Applied Forces
By examining Crayon Physics Deluxe, we can see how video games can be challenging without being frustrating. By minimizing punishment, games can evoke all of the good aspects of challenge — the feeling of accomplishment, the sympathy with the player character, and the pacing challenges provide — without making the player feel inadequate or wasting the player's time. This requires three things: challenges must be legitimate, recovery must be quick, and creativity must be encouraged.
Legitimate challenge is, sadly, less common than it should be. Games should be challenging because they test player skill, not because they present arbitrary obstacles. A fork in the road with one path leading to instant death and the other leading to success is only legitimate if enough clues are provided that the player can reasonably determine which path is the right one. In games where failure is severely punished, this may feel challenging, but the removal of the punishment reveals that this sort of thing is just an artificial way of extending gameplay.
It is far better to present a challenge that requires the player to be clever or quick or precise than to present one that requires she be lucky. Likewise, sudden unexpected twists like enemies ambushing the player should be fair; if the only way for a player to succeed is to "predict the future" and anticipate the surprise that made her fail the first time, that's not challenge. It's the developer punishing the player for not possessing precognition.
Quick recovery from failure minimizes the amount of time wasted by waiting or redoing already-beaten parts of the game. A player who has to replay the first half of a level or wait through a lengthy loading screen ten times will become bored, and boredom is not what any developer should be aiming for. Quicksaving can help with this, as the player can return to her saved game ten seconds earlier. Far better, however, is a system of frequent autosave checkpoints, so that the player doesn't have to tap F6 every fifteen seconds. Players should not be forced to repeat content.
There are two slight exceptions to this rule. The first is when part of the challenge is to bypass several obstacles in sequence. In this case, the sequence should differ enough each time or be complex enough that the player is not bored or frustrated by repeating it. The second exception is in multiplayer games such as Counter-Strike, where a "time out" period after death grants an advantage to successful players. In this case, moderation is key to avoid putting players to sleep.
The last requirement of effective challenge is to encourage player creativity. A challenge which can only be completed one way is an exercise in reading the developer's mind. The more difficult an obstacle is, the more the game should allow the player to try different tactics and approaches to succeeding at it. This may require specifically engineering alternate paths, or it may just call for a richer simulation that allows for emergent solutions. The possibility of creativity allows the player to learn from failure and to have a different experience each time she attempts a challenge.
Crayon Physics Deluxe is, of course, a puzzle-solving game, and is a different animal than the majority of monster-killing games. However, the techniques it uses to manage difficulty can be applied to any genre. By setting an appropriate level of challenge but minimizing the frustration of failure, games can be more rewarding and better create the sensation of flow. Failure-friendly design allows players to have more fun with less wasted time and pulled hair.
[Gregory Weir is a writer, game developer (The Majesty Of Colors), and software programmer. He maintains Ludus Novus, a podcast and accompanying blog dedicated to the art of interaction. He can be reached at [email protected]]
Categories: Column: The Interactive Palette
7 Comments
A good article.
I have noticed an additional usage of 'punishment'. Many arcade games rely on twitch-based skills. This is a form of physical activity and can be improved through repetition. Think of the classic Karate Kid scenes involving Wax on / Wax off. For many earlier arcade games, repeating the same sections over and over and over again was a critical training exercise that contributed to the player's ultimate success.
For a game like Crayon Physics that involves mental problem solving, such a feedback system doesn't make much sense. Starting 3 levels back doesn't do much for you physics skills.
My rule of thumb is "Provide appropriate failure feedback that helps the player learn how to master critical skills."
For some games, that involves showing the results of their action and quickly letting them try again. In others, it involves encouraging them to practice, practice, practice. Of course, this can be done without telling them they are an idiot. See fishing in Animal Crossing or Yoga exercises in Wii Fit for friendlier approaches to encouraging repetition.
take care
Danc.
Danc | February 9, 2009 11:35 AM
I think that repetition can definitely be a useful learning tool, but you should take care that it isn't boring repetition. Given sufficient development resources, repeating a different version of an area is always better than repeating the same darn thing over and over.
Gregory Weir | February 9, 2009 12:16 PM
Unfortunately, there are far too many players and critics who label things "trial and error" and "luck-based" when frankly, they're just not very skilled. Just because you tried something over and over, finally succeeded, and weren't sure what you did differently doesn't mean the challenge was luck-based; it means your performance is.
Rat | February 9, 2009 3:33 PM
(1) Just to expand on Danc's comment, another way to ameliorate the issues associated with repetition is to provide more detailed performance feedback - "success feedback even on failure". If I got an Accuracy score of 78 the previous run, and this time I got 81, it creates a sense of accomplishment because I know I'm getting better. If I lasted for 3 minutes rather than 2, and managed to wear the boss's health down to 10% rather than 40%, then I feel like I can beat it on the next run. Fundamentally this is what a lot of "performance" games, like rhythm games, are about. Nobody plays DDR like a linear game where they only experience each piece of content once.
By the way - to expand on that, players should NEVER be forced to repeat non-interactive content. But I should think that's obvious... right?
(2) I'm conflicted about the "different versions of the area" idea, because I think players may get frustrated if they try the same thing that worked the previous time and it doesn't work due to the change. Better if the enemies respond differently only because the player uses different tactics.
(3) The problem with a zero-failure model is that it supports the degenerate strategy of trial and error. If you look at those old LucasArts adventure games, it's almost a cliche that frustrated players just tried every object with every other object until they got the right combination. There's no satisfaction in solving a puzzle that way, no sense of accomplishing something. In other words, not all game challenges are luck-based, but the majority can be solved by luck (exception: some of the nastier puzzles in the Myst series), and zero-failure design supports luck-based solutions because there is zero cost for an incorrect attempt. It's arguable that the designer should "let the player play the way they want to", but I contend that planning for zero-failure design can tempt the designer to impose artificially difficult "challenges" which do nobody any good. (Remember the good old days of "hunt the pixel"?)
n.n | February 9, 2009 6:18 PM
interesting read, especially since i've been playing a lot of Skate 2 recently.
this game has a really neat feature:- it allows you to move certain objects (picnic tables, rails, ramps, etc) and place them in a manner that challenges the skater. the video replays ensure that everyone else will be able to watch your vid and try to top your line. the game has only been out for a few weeks but already there are vids with gamers crafting creative layouts and impressive tricking.
the challenge in the game is not so much imposed by the game itself (the career mode is quite short and serves mostly to unlock new skate spots) but by the gamer and the community in showcasing their skill, both gaming and video-editing.
grinder monkey | February 10, 2009 3:33 AM
Rat: A game which is only fun to skilled players is poorly designed. One of the reasons gaming has such a narrow audience is that we expect players to begin a game already-skilled.
n.n: I fail to see how the zero-failure model supports trial and error more than the failure-filled model. In the former, the player tries, doesn't succeed, and retries immediately. In the latter, the player tries, fails, spends ten minutes getting to where they were before, then retries.
If a designer wants to discourage solving puzzles by luck, she should design puzzles that can't reasonably be solved by luck. Give a sufficiently large solution space, or have the solution (but not the method of solving) change on each attempt. And if a player really wants to try all 4,096 possible solutions instead of actually figuring the puzzle out, let them.
Gregory Weir | February 10, 2009 7:00 AM
Excellent article. Like the challenging vs punishing labels. Now reading the rest of the column!
Colm Larkin | February 10, 2009 9:06 AM